Apple Asked by Governments to Share User Data More Often than You Think

Apple has long been one of the companies opposing to government requests to break into customers’ devices, but it still helps law enforcement with user information whenever the data is stored on its servers.

Based on search warrants, these requests mostly target iCloud information that governments can use for a wide variety of purposes, some of which are related to criminal or terrorist investigations.

In the second half of 2017, Apple received 3,358 requests to extract personal data, with the company complying in 717 of the cases. Data like photos, calendar entries, contacts, email, and even device backups, all of which were stored on iCloud, were offered based on these legal requests.

Apple says in its transparency report (PDF version) that it challenged a total of 224 of the requests it received, and eventually, it offered no data in 600 of the cases.